CAFOs Expanded; Glyphosate Carcinogen in California

**A court ruling significantly expands the number of concentrated animal feeding operations that will have to report air emissions from animal waste.

On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found illegal a 2008 rule exempting all but the largest CAFOs from reporting releases of hazardous substances, like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, above certain levels.

The rule contained the blanket exemption under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.

**Congressional Republicans are turning their attention to tax reform, hoping to reach an easier consensus than on health care. But the only GOP plan on the table is making many in Ag nervous.

The main concerns involve attempts to convert the corporate tax into something like a “value-added,” consumption-based tax and eliminate the deduction for interest expenses.

The latter proposal was roundly criticized at a House Ag Committee hearing, as a “hare-brained idea” and “ludicrous.”

**California’s environmental health agency is proceeding with its plan to list glyphosate as a possible carcinogen. Officials say glyphosate will be added to California’s Proposition 65, a list of chemicals they’ve determined could cause cancer.

Two years ago, the International Agency for Research on Cancer determined glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, was a probable carcinogen. But the EPA says it poses low toxicity for humans.

If successful, California would be the first American regulatory body to list glyphosate as a possible carcinogen.